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Pink dolphin attracts international attention
A bottlenose dolphin that is frequenting an estuary north of the Gulf of Mexico is creating international attention. The reason being is that the animal is pink in colour. The dolphin, which swims around Louisiana’s Lake Calcasieu gets its colour from albinism and was first spotted and photographed in June 2007.
 Its mother is not an albino and has the gray colouring typical of coastal bottlenose dolphins. However, the animal appears to be healthy and its skin is smooth, glossy pink and without flaws. Very little is known about albino dolphins due to their extreme rarity. Albino dolphins, like albino animals of other species, are typically white in colour; this particular dolphin is believed to be the only pink dolphin ever spotted, getting its colour and bright red eyes from blood vessels that lie just below its layer of blubber.
It has attracted many tourists to Lake Calcasieu, but it’s important not to over crowd the animal and disturb its daily life. Observing it from a distance is fine but it’s vital to give the animal its space. Albinism is a rare condition seen in just 14 bottlenose dolphins since the first one was spotted in 1962 but affects many species, including humans and 20 species of dolphins, whales and porpoises. Albino animals in general tend to be smaller than other animals, more susceptible to sun damage and face a higher risk of melanomas and retinal damage.
There have only been two other documented sightings of albino bottlenose dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico. The first was reported during the summer of 1994 in Little Lake near New Orleans, Louisiana but was seen for less than an hour and never sighted again. Another dolphin calf was first observed in a group of more than 40 dolphins south of Galveston, Texas in September 2003 and was resighted several times in the same vicinity throughout August 2004. Both animals unlike the pink dolphin, were white.
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